Display from exhibit on poet Joyce Kilmer's life at his namesake rest area on the NJ TurnpikeJoyce Kilmer Society of Mahwah

NEW BRUNSWICK — Poet Joyce Kilmer, whose most famous poem is “Trees,” was born and raised in New Brunswick, but moved out of Middlesex County to teach and live as an adult.

Now, an exhibit mounted by the Joyce Kilmer Society of Mahwah, is on display at the Joyce Kilmer Rest Area on the New Jersey Turnpike, located between Exits 8A and 9 in Middlesex County.

The exhibit contains 22 pieces depicting Kilmer’s life, which began in 1886 in New Brunswick. He graduated from Rutgers College in the city, and died when at age 31 in 1918 on a battlefield in Europe during World War I.

In a press release announcing the exhibit, the Joyce Kilmer Society said it had located earlier this year a letter by Kilmer’s wife, Aline, and his actual notebook in which the poem, “Trees,” was written, dated Feb. 2, 1913. The poem was written in the Kilmers’ home in Mahwah, the press release said.

Alex Michelini, a spokesman for the society, said putting an exhibit about Kilmer’s life in the Joyce Kilmer rest area “was a natural. And the fact that thousands of travelers a day stop at the Turnpike’s busiest rest area added to the importance of the exhibit at that location.”

James Daino, manager of the rest area for HMS Host, said about 3,000 people stop at the rest area, located between East Brunswick and South Brunswick, every day and “in the summer, the figure doubles.”

Michelini said the society has been placing exhibits at libraries and other public gatherings in northern New Jersey and parts of New York state to familiarize people with Kilmer and “in some cases, reintroduce them to his poem, which millions of school children once memorized in grade school.”